Taste the Passion

Wines you'll fall in love with.

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Gifting expensive wines can make you a hero, but are they worth the money?

Although I'd love to enthusiastically proclaim, "Always!" I couldn't do it without laughing. In some cases, gobs of money are poured into creating a wet-dreamy winery to produce a $100 wine.

They blow millions of dollars hiring the "best" winemaker, cultivating or buying the "best" fruit from the "best" vineyards, building an opulent winery with the "best" view and buying the "best," most "advanced" equipment to impress the foolish rich people who pull strings to secure "appointments" to purchase the wine.

The whole thing is contrived, like those atrocious "planned communities" that dot our once-pastoral suburban landscapes.

But then there's the genuine way to create wine: a lone, determined guy slaving over a fermentation tank in a nondescript Napa warehouse park who crafts a toe-curling, kick-ass Cabernet, labels it "Joe's Cabernet," and sells it for $60 (of course, once the rich folks get wind, as in the case of Screaming Eagle winery, the price skyrockets the following year). It completes the scene if his kids help with the project and his wife runs the winery. In both scenarios, the wines are expensive, but one just tastes more authentic to me. Can't imagine why.

Although a bottle of Opus One, Silver Oak, or [insert fancy California winery here] would work as a gift, it's the passion I seek, not the glitz. I give wines that reflect the anxious pride in every drop, delivering layers of flavor the winemaker lovingly coaxed into the juice. Not all of them are smaller wineries; some just might be larger wineries that wish to keep their toes in the craft wine pool, mostly out of their undying enthusiasm for the grape.

To show this, they might bottle a limited wine made from their estate grapes or buy fruit from the better vineyards, possibly exceptional single-vineyard sites. And these things cost money.

Let's face it -- if you're sourcing more expensive fruit, grown on increasingly expensive land, with rising labor costs, the wine is going to cost more. So, sometimes, it is worth the money -- and that means reaching deep into the crevasses of your wallet.

Here is a list of wines I recommend for all of the above reasons: love, love, and love.

Recommended Wines

Frank Family Vineyards 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley -- Frank Family Vineyards has won my heart. I haven't had a disappointing bottle yet. Their Cab is elegance embodied. Tootsie Roll flavors, laced with caramel, vanilla, and honeysuckle ... backed up with white pepper, blackberry, and a slight smokiness. $55

Boudreaux 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley -- Some of the best values in wine these days come from Washington State. But keep this one a secret. This Cab is a bit shy at first, but it opens up like a warm hug. Some supple tannins penetrate a base of bright, vibrant cherry and raspberry, tinged with plum and blackberries. $60